


By Any Other Name

by DGCatAniSiri



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 08:51:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9064804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DGCatAniSiri/pseuds/DGCatAniSiri
Summary: Risha seeks the name of the ship, as the Captain seems less than forthcoming.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This emerged out of my personal frustration of the lack of a name for the ship (it's important enough to the Smuggler to chase Skavek across the galaxy, you'd think a name would at least come up, even if there are justifiable reasons for BioWare not giving it one), and the way the Smuggler I rolled evolved in my head.

“So I’m curious,” Risha said as she heard the captain walking by her set up in the cargo hold. “What is this ship’s name?”

Captain Dak Hain – it was probably an alias, being common enough given and family names that no one would blink twice at it, but she certainly couldn’t judge, given that she had simply dropped her famous, or infamous, name as her way of hiding her identity – paused in the doorway, cocking an eyebrow. Or, at least, cocking the cybernetic implant over his eyebrow. The redheaded freighter captain had, by Risha’s estimates, three visible implants on his face. She wouldn’t ask, but she was curious about the story behind them. “What, you don’t know? Didn’t Skavak offer one?”

She scoffed. “Oh, he gave this ship a name, all right. But somehow, I doubt you call it “Skavak’s Prize.” Even you couldn’t match his egotism.” When he’d used that name for the ship when she’d come on board, she’d known immediately that the ship hadn’t belonged to Skavak originally. That was part of why she’d been completely unsurprised to meet the captain when he’d retaken it.

The captain shuddered at the name. “I just added one more reason to kill Skavak to my list...”

“It must be getting quite long by this point,” she remarked. “So, what is the actual name of this ship?”

The captain shrugged. “Ship has many names. Run up a bit of a reputation, need to have several ID’s handy.”

“I’m not fresh off the farm, captain. I do know that much as part of the life of a smuggler. But I was asking about a proper name. Surely you have a name for it, unique to this vessel, regardless of the various names you give it when slipping past customs. ”

He shrugged. “’The ship’ is good enough for a passenger,” he said, crossing his arms. “I mean you’re only gonna be here long enough for us to find Nok Drayan’s treasure, right?”

She glared at him, though more in defense of her father than anything else, which meant she couldn’t quite argue that point with him. “Fine. ‘The ship’ it is.”

Though she knew that it would still be a question lingering in the back of her mind. Still, she enjoyed a good mystery. Unravelling those had always been a fond pastime.

***

Travelling across a handful of planets, and using a different ID on each, Risha had yet to come up with an acceptable answer. Not that she’d been focused on it as a priority, given that she was mostly focused on making sure that her father would survive long enough for the captain to recover his treasure. 

With Nok Drayan dead, though, and the crown of Dubrillion in her hands, Risha started thinking more and more about it. She was surprised when her attempts at datamining the ship’s computer core turned up no results. It was as if the captain had simply... never registered a name, even in some fashion that only mattered for other smugglers. 

The captain was a very strange man.

***

She kept track of each of the IDs used, hoping for a pattern to emerge. With the Dubrillion throne light years away, and her quick recognition that she was more use to Dubrillion at the moment as a symbol than a leader, she was giving it more attention, especially now that they were wrapped up in Senator Dodonna and Darmas Polaran’s privateer scheme. If there was any time that the captain could fly his ship under its proper name, this would likely be it.

And yet... _Siren’s Call. Eon Eagle. Wind Chaser_. Half a dozen others, and none helped establish a pattern. Nothing that was enough for Risha to determine a real name for the ship. 

Even the others – Corso, Bowdaar, even Akaavi – seemed to have no idea. Though they had less concern about the name of the ship. To them, it was ‘the ship,’ their method of conveyance. Nothing special about it. If the captain had no name for it, it didn’t matter all that much, now did it?

But Risha knew better. The captain hadn’t chased Skavak across the galaxy for just any ship. Sure, it might have been his only way of making a living, but it was the fact that he’d carried a grudge against Skavak for the theft. He’d wanted Skavak dead, and it wasn’t for professional pride. It had become personal, very quickly. It wasn’t that Skavak had stolen a ship. It was that Skavak had stolen THIS ship.

Risha had even tried to discover contacts from prior to the captain’s dealings with Skavak, though that hadn’t turned up anything. Those she’d managed to get in touch with had enough professional courtesy to refuse to discuss the particulars. Unusual for smugglers.

The more walls she hit, the more she wanted to find an answer. 

***

Her search for the ship name got a very unexpected clue shortly after matters on Corellia were resolved. The captain had decided to take the ship for a refurbish and refit from a ship mechanic in the Outer Rim who worked at a grey market level. Given the captain’s Republic connections, renewed in light of his work on Corellia, a low profile wasn’t entirely an option. 

Still, she genuinely had happened to be in the main hold when he made contact with the mechanic. Or, she quickly realized, someone who worked for the mechanic.

“Oh come on. That’s ridiculous!” the captain said as the hologram flickered. “You don’t fleece newcomers with that price! I could buy another ship for that!”

The Rodian on the other end of the line did not seem swayed. “You do not need to utilize our services, Captain. There are many other mechanics who would likely welcome your business,” he responded in Huttese. 

“And I’m the guy who defeated the Voidwolf. You don’t think that kind of endorsement makes up for the money you’re trying to extort from me?” the captain demanded, crossing his arms. 

The Rodian did not appear all that moved by his irritation. He almost spoke, but then turned his head to someone out of the holo’s line of sight. Whatever was being said on the other end caused a shift in the Rodian’s body language. The Rodian let out a puff of air.

“Alright, Captain. We’re giving you a preferred rate,” he said. Then he offered a sum of credits that was severely reduced from the original estimate – Risha would have agreed to about half again that and called it exceedingly fair.

The captain smiled. “I’m glad we could see reason.”

“A reminder for you, captain. This is still a business. The old man offers you pity for Daylan, but-” The Rodian cut himself off, seemingly because of something on his end. He glared at the captain. “Docking bay 3, captain.” And with that, the Rodian cut the communication.

“Yeah, same to you...” The captain shook his head. “Well, next stop, Deralia. I’m gonna be in my room for a bit.” With that, he left the hold.

And Risha added this reference to a ‘Daylan’ to her (still rather small) list of clues. She decided to take the time between now and the completion of the repairs and upgrades to try and track this down. 

***

There was someone looking to board the ship before they had even had time to fully shut off the engines. The captain greeted them personally. Risha just got a glimpse of them, a man, at least twice the captain’s age, who he treated warmly. Reading the body language, the man was greeting the captain almost as a son, and that was mirrored in the captain’s own. 

She felt confident that, at this point, she had the pieces she needed to solve this puzzle. The problem was simply that she didn’t know how they fit together. 

Well, she reasoned, if she was confident enough that she had the pieces, she knew of a few ways to assemble them, once the captain came back.

***

The captain didn’t come back for a few hours, and when he did, he looked about ready to crawl into bed. Still, Risha figured that there wasn’t a better time than now. 

“Captain!” she called as he crossed the hold. She held up a bottle. “So we never properly drank to your victory. You’re now in command of one of the largest underworld associations in the galaxy. I have a bottle of Alderaanian ale, and the vintage, I’m told, is one of their finest.”

The captain groaned. “You know, I’d normally take you up on that, but-”

“But nothing, captain,” she insisted. “I have alcohol, and I’m not walking away until this bottle is empty.” There was no room for argument in her voice, giving her best ‘proclamation from on high’ performance. Shame she wasn’t going to be queen of Dubrillion any time soon...

It had the desired effect. “All right, fine. But the one bottle, understand?”

***

The ale was just enough to loosen their lips some. She had a healthy buzz, and she doubted that the captain’s implants would let him get drunk on the low amounts he was taking in. Still, she could see him relaxing some as he drank. In some ways, she thought the gesture itself was enough to make him relax – for once someone on this ship had done something for him.

“So...” she said after they’d been settled in a comfortable silence for a while. “Do you remember our conversation months ago? About the name of the ship?”

“You know, Corso owes me ten credits just by you asking me that,” he said with a smirk.

“Fleecing Corso probably doesn’t take much,” she pointed out, remembering what had happened with “Doctor Hope” a few weeks into her journeys with them. “Nothing against him, of course, he’s certainly reliable...”

“Yeah, I know. Nice kid, needs a bit more experience to play the big leagues. Believe me, I picked up on that plenty.” He sighed. “So. What about my ship?”

“I paid attention. You use a lot of aliases for it, a lot of them having a theme about birds or the air. Psychologists would probably call that a subconscious expression.”

“Common one, especially for smug- I mean, ‘privateers,’ wouldn’t you say?”

She nodded. “True. There’s another thing I noticed, though. None of the names are explicitly female. Almost every smuggler I’ve met tends towards anthropomorphizing their ships as women. We can leave the analysis of the sexism of that for another day, of course.”

“Of course,” he echoed. It sounded like he was willing to indulge her on this. Not surprisingly, really, given the course of their friendship over the last few months.

“But,” she continued, “you don’t even refer to the ship as ‘she’ or ‘her.’ Even people who don’t fly a ship tend to do that. Then I overhead references to ‘Daylan’ while you were on the comm.” That got a reaction from him. He stiffened slightly, almost like he’d been kicked in a sensitive spot.

Slowly he nodded. “Okay...”

“And then I saw you and who I assume was the ‘old man’ that rather unpleasant Rodian was referring to earlier. I did my research on him.”

“And what’d you find?”

“Vogel Hylan. A grey market ship mechanic, always skirting the right side of the law. About five years ago, his only son was killed by a group of Hutt slavers who thought he’d overheard something he shouldn’t have.” She paused, almost looking concerned she was pushing her luck by approaching the topic. “Also injured in the attack was his son’s partner.”

There was a long silence from the captain, and for a moment, Risha thought she’d misjudged him, and that he disapproved of her investigation. Then he leaned forward. “You focused so much on the ship, I’m almost surprised you never asked about my implants. Probably would have gotten you to your answer a lot sooner.”

Truth be told, she honestly barely even registered them. There was some anti-cyborg sentiment in the galaxy still, but Nok Drayan had implants of his own. To Risha, they were almost a comfort. And she knew enough not to start insisting that she get told everything. “It seemed like a more personal question than ‘what’s the name of the ship I’m berthed on?’” she pointed out.

“Fair point.” He took a deep breath. “The ship was Daylan’s idea. The two of us going into mostly legitimate business together, flying free through the galaxy. He’d just gotten it when... the slavers killed him. After that, I almost told Vogel to keep it, sell it, scrap it... Anything. Didn’t think I could fly it without him. Vogel talked me out of it, convinced me to keep it, fly it in Daylan’s memory. So Daylan’s Wings it was.”

Knowing how the captain tended to turn things to a joke when they got a little too serious, she flashed him a smirk. “Darn. I’d been hoping on something more prosaic, like ‘Daylan’s Freedom,’ maybe.”

“Are you mocking me? After I just bared my soul like this to you, you’re mocking me.”

“’Mocking’? Now would I do such a thing?” she asked, looking as innocent as possible. Naturally, the captain saw right through it. “So... Why the secrecy then? Why keep it to yourself?”

“In this case, it’s no one’s business but mine. Vogel’s one of the few people who know it, because this was Daylan’s dream as much if not more than mine. And... It lets me keep something of him to myself. This ship... A lot of the time, I feel more like I’m caring for it for him, rather than because it’s mine. Maybe that’s silly, but...”

She shook her head. “No. I think it makes sense.” It was almost like the Dubrillion crown – she kept it, certainly. But she also was increasingly unsure if she would ever wear it. It was still possible she might become the queen of Dubrillion one day, but it seemed less and less likely to happen in fact. But she would hold that crown Nok Drayan had saved for her. It was hers. Not the monarch of Dubrillion’s, but hers. “For what it’s worth, my lips are sealed, Captain.” He’d more than earned that much from her.

He nodded. “Thanks.” He took another sip of the ale. “So... I have to ask. You’ve spent all this time looking for clues and hints about the name of the ship... You didn’t think to even try asking after that first time?” Meaning after she’d revealed her connection to Nok Drayan and officially signed on as first mate. Or discussed the details of retaking Dubrillion with him.

She chuckled. “Captain, I was the daughter of a pirate-king in exile. Unraveling mysteries was a common pastime for me. Well, less ‘mysteries’ and more ‘heists,’ but I suppose that depends on your point of view. I could certainly have asked, but it’s more fun to do the digging myself. And significantly more satisfying.”

“Fair enough.” He raised his glass. “To a satisfying mystery, then.”

She returned the toast. “I’ll drink to that.”


End file.
